Madam! I sometimes think if I could marry her secretly, and then take her away to some country where my craft is better paid than in this; and after a year or two, when the storm had blown over, you know, could come back with money in my purse, and say, 'My dear parents, we do not seek your substance, we but ask you to love us once more as you used, and as we have never ceased to love you'-- but, alas! I shall be told these are the dreams of an inexperienced young man." The old lady's eyes sparkled.
"It is no dream, but a piece of wonderful common-sense in a boy; it remains to be seen whether you have spirit to carry out your own thought.

There is a country, Gerard, where certain fortune awaits you at this moment.

Here the arts freeze, but there they flourish, as they never yet flourished in any age or land." "It is Italy!" cried Gerard.

"It is Italy!" "Ay, Italy! where painters are honoured like princes, and scribes are paid three hundred crowns for copying a single manuscript.

Know you not that his Holiness the Pope has written to every land for skilful scribes to copy the hundreds of precious manuscripts that are pouring into that favoured land from Constantinople, whence learning and learned men are driven by the barbarian Turks ?" "Nay, I know not that; but it has been the dream and hope of my life to visit Italy, the queen of all the arts; oh, madam! But the journey, and we are all so poor." "Find you the heart to go, I'll find the means.